


All the Miles in the Road

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 12:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14237427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: There was never a great overreaching plan, not for Geoff.





	All the Miles in the Road

**Author's Note:**

> I've been kicking the idea of [this Leverage-ish AU](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13666224/chapters/31393173) around for a while now, and this is where it starts??? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Geoff didn't have a plan as a kid, nothing other than getting out of the town he grew up in as soon as humanly possible. 

One of the shortest routes out of there comes with combat boots and weapons training. Meant schlepping down to the recruitment office and slapping a bright, cheerful smile on his face as he listened to the recruiting officer's spiel and signing away years of his life for a chance to make something of himself. 

A few months later and he's suffering through boot camp with countless other poor bastards. Meets a few who aren't as jaded as Geoff is, weren't born that way, so they wholeheartedly buy into what their commanding officers are selling them. 

Go out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed until they get deployed to a combat zone and realize shit's not as clear-cut as they were told. That in between the black and white world of _you're either with us or you're against us_ , there's a whole hell of a lot of gray, and that's when shit gets rough.

Geoff goes in with his eyes wide open. Sees it coming and still can't do a damn thing about the way life kicks him full in the teeth with all the things he thought he knew. Young and half-convinced he's invincible, so goddamn certain he can handle it just fine.

(He doesn't, but it's nothing a bottle of booze won't fix, blurring the edges a little until it's just this funny little ache poking at him instead of a raw wound, bleeding him dry.)

Geoff doesn't see combat himself, coming into things at just the right/wrong time, but he's there's for the clean-up. 

Gets to see fellow soldiers, brothers and sisters in arms, trudging along and something off in the way they move. 

More than a few coming back with thousand-yard stares and the kind of nightmares that wake them screaming. The ones everyone hears but only a few do something about. The ones that follow them home into neat little suburbs and bustling city blocks. Rural farmlands with acre after acre stretching out before them and all those damned memories lodged in their brains, claws in deep.

Geoff gets to see the broken down buildings that used to be a school, a daycare center. Places where kids played and parents talked. Places of business, tattered signs and awnings and broken windows and livelihoods lost, broken and shattered and gone.

And it leaves a mark, all of this. Sharp and jagged and bleeding inside him as he does his duty and serves his country. 

Sees all the good they've done here in between all the wrong. Sees the way the politicians who've never seen a day of this pat themselves on the back and declare it a job well done. The way none of them ever see it from the ground themselves until it's been sanitized for the perfect photo opportunity, use all of this to win them votes at home.

When his time's up, Geoff gets the hell out and never looks back. Gets a job for an insurance company an old buddy works at and happily offers to chat Geoff up to his bosses, give him a foot in the door there. 

And Geoff, he's at loose ends at the time. Money from the government sitting there for him to build a future with, and nothing in him that wants to reach out and grab it just yet.

So he dresses up in an ill-fitting suit he buys off the rack in a department store because the only things he has in his closet now are old t-shirts and worn hoodies and battered jeans.

Goes into that interview with sweating palms he wipes against the leg of his pants, before standing and shaking hands, smiling just so. 

Not too friendly, not too impersonal. Manages to hit this balance of the two that seems to agree with his interviewer because the man gives him a hearty handshake and that leads right into asking him about Geoff's military service. Leaning in with the kind of anticipation that makes Geoff uneasy, but he's young and needs a job, and this could be it.

He plays it off as humble, gives the man just enough to let him fill in the blanks himself. Naming foreign locations he's probably never heard of and will never see. Tells a story here, a story there. 

All the while there's this little voice in the back of Geoff's mind, small and angry and helpless saying _motherfucker_ because Geoff's known guys like this all his life.

Grew up with them, the ones who glorified what Geoff and the other soldiers did, what others continue to do. 

Holding their service to their country up as some great shining thing like it's honestly as simple as black and white, right and wrong. Who claim to admire and respect what they've done for their country and turn around and don't do a fucking thing to help them when they come home, a little broken, a lot lost, and so wholly in need of help they'll never get.

It's the first sign, but Geoff's young and needs a job and this could be it, or so he tells himself, over and over again until he almost believes it. (Almost.)

========

Geoff spends the next few years busting his ass to reclaim valuable after valuable. Doesn't see it at first, the way the company, _his_ company, fucks over the little guy time after time after time.

Always off gallivanting across the world, miles and miles away from the heart of things, but eventually he notices what’s been going on all these years. 

The way they make good use of those loopholes they love so much, fucking artists about it. And he sees other things too, watches them laughing to themselves as they decline this claim, that one, saving the company money and screwing over the everyday person, and that - 

It's the beginning of the end, really.

(It takes some time, but he gets there.)

========

“Is it worth it, do you think?”

Geoff pulls his attention away from his phone and looks at the fucking kid he's got zip-tied in his hotel room. (Feels like a dirty old man at the way the thought rolls through his head because there's just no good way of spinning that one.)

“Is what worth it?” Geoff asks, hitting send on his text to let his boss knows he got the painting back. “You being a little prick?”

There's this quiet little laugh, and then the kid twists around to face him. Eyes drifting to the painting leaning against the wall for a brief moment.

“What they pay you for,” the kid says, something in his voice that catches. “Running around chasing people like me down to save them money. Is it worth it?”

Geoff sighs, looking at the kid.

 _Young_ , so unbelievably young, and he's not jaded, really. Not angry or bitter or cynical, but he's not one to blindly believe everything he sees or hears on television and the radio. An edge to him that Geoff forgets about, time and again when their paths happen to cross. 

Sharp, dangerous, in the way it cuts both ways at times. 

Smart, clever little bastard with sticky fingers and a talent for getting into places he shouldn't be. For getting his hands on things he has no right touching.

“You want an honest answer?” Geoff asks, and this is him being an honest man, something he feels he hasn't been in a long, long time. “Do you, Gavin?”

Gavin's eyes narrow, and he cocks his head. 

“Are you going to give me one?” 

Geoff gets up, walks over to the chair he put Gavin in after he finally tracked him down to the hotel the slippery little fucker was staying at. So goddamn clever and perfectly aware of it, delighting in the way people scramble to play catch-up with him over and over again.

Gavin looks up at him, all too aware of his current circumstances and throwing back the kind of fearlessness only the young carry with them.

“No,” Geoff sighs, pulling out a knife to cut the zip-ties. Ignores the way he can feel Gavin watching him oh so carefully as Geoff moves past him to nudge the painting so it's not leaning at an angle, likely to fall over like that and all. “It's not worth it.”

Give it five minutes and there won't be a fucking trace of Gavin anywhere in the hotel. Another five, ten, if Gavin feels like further tempting fate, and he'll be long gone. 

No power in the world able to sniff out whatever twisting, winding trail he'll be sure to have laid down to throw off the local law enforcement officers making their way to the hotel looking for him.

When Geoff looks behind him, the chair's empty, curtains to the balcony overlooking the courtyard billowing gently in the wind.

========

Geoff gets awards, gets accolades. Gets promotions and raises and keeps being a good employee, and it eats away at him.

Geoff doesn't handle these kind of cases, clients, no, but he has friends in the company. Cozied up to people who hear what's going on because he doesn't spend that much time in the office. Always chasing down some piece of art or antique, something valuable to the right people, and it pays to keep an ear to the ground in a place like this.

There's a family, kid wasting away from cancer and – Geoff hears from people who won't lift a goddamn finger of their own volition – useless words of sympathy and _if only we could do something to help_.

He gets his hands on the client's files, does some digging and realizes there is something they _can_ do. 

A whole hell of it, actually, but the thing of it is it'll cost the company a pretty penny. All these millions, billions they've made, stand to make, and the treatment this kid needs is barely a drop in the bucket but they’re greedier than he thought, and it’s just one kid, isn’t it? 

Sad story that’ll make the rounds before being forgotten all too soon, one among many and people have always had short memories when it comes to these things. 

And Geoff - 

_“Is it worth it, do you think?”_

There's a family out there suffering and no one's doing a goddamn thing to help them, and Geoff's old and tired by now. Seen the way people fuck each other because it's the easiest goddamned thing in the world to do. Half the time you don't even have to lift a finger, just wait and time will take care of things for you.

Geoff has all these passwords and clearances and little bits and pieces of the company invested in him because he's such a _good employee_. 

Even has an office somewhere he never uses where they tell him all those awards and accolades he's bee given over the years hang on the wall in tastefully elegant frames because someone of his standing deserves to have one.

Perfect place to right some of the wrongs he's let slide by him all these years, finally do something _right_.

Because this kid, their family, they aren’t the only ones the company’s fucking over at the moment. He finds a dozen right off, and when he looks deeper unearths even more.

Geoff gathers up all the parts of him he left scattered behind him over the years and pieces himself back together for one big, beautiful fuck you to his goddamned company.

========

Geoff quits before he can be fired. 

Ties up loose ends nice and neat and figures what he needs is a change of scenery, start over somewhere else. He gets himself a nice little condo, decides to take it easy for a bit until he figures out where to go from here.

Finds a quaint little cafe with outdoor seating where he can grab a coffee and catch up on his reading, soak up the sun a bit.

“What do you think of the biscotti here?”

Geoff sighs, and lowers his book. 

Gavin's grinning at him, all cheerfully smug with his sunglasses pushed into his hair. Looks like any other twenty-something douche walking the streets around here. Hip and trendy and goddamned annoying.

“No,” Geoff says, because he's not playing whatever little game Gavin's playing. He's out of the business of playing that game. Is just some sad bastard who spends his days reading and drinking overpriced coffee a quaint little cafe. “Go bother someone else.”

He knows there were a lot of people chomping at the bit to get his job for years before he decided to give his old company the finger. Finally had enough of playing stupid, like he hadn't known what they'd do to save money. Plenty of people for Gavin to torment now, lead on wild goose chases and whatever the hell else he does for fun.

Gavin rolls his eyes and waves a waitress over, orders the biscotti and some ridiculous drink, settles back down with his hands folded together over his stomach as he watches Geoff.

There's a little voice in the back of Geoff's head, the dutiful one he hasn't truthfully listened to in years. The one telling him he should _do something_ about the internationally wanted thief sitting across from him with this irritating level of smug coming off him. Little smirk on his face, and so damn certain Geoff's not going to do a damn thing about any of it.

“What do you want?” he asks, because Gavin’s still watching him, tiny little wheels turning in that head of his.

Gavin looks Geoff over, deliberate about it, and smiles.

Small and real, and he waves a hand at Geoff. This little corner of the world he’s calling home these days. 

“Worth it?” he asks, as though he doesn’t already know.

“I’m going to call the cops if you keep gloating, you little shit.”

Gavin laughs like he thinks Geoff’s joking, but dials his smugness down a few notches. Pulls out his phone and taps away at it quietly, either planning his next great heist or looking at cat videos, Geoff has no damn clue. Doesn’t care, because it’s not his problem anymore, thank Christ.

Still.

Geoff looks at Gavin, stupid kid who’s too clever for his own good, getting into trouble he shouldn’t because it sounds like fun to him. Keeps coming around to check in on Geoff even though there’s no reason why he should. 

Painfully honest for someone in his line of work. (Closest thing to a friend Geoff’s let himself have for a long time.)

 _Yes_ , Geoff thinks, because he’s still learning how to be honest with himself. _It is._


End file.
